February 21, 2001 'Facing History' Online By MARGARET W. GOLDSBOROUGH On the Crayola Crayons Web site you can pick up some fascinating trivia:
-- Tiger Woods’s favorite crayon is wild strawberry. -- the most popular color as of January 31 is blue. -- the flesh-colored crayon was renamed peach in 1962 "partially as a result of the U.S. civil rights movement."
Boston Latin School junior Lucy Rugo knows that there is no flesh-colored crayon. It took dozens of different colors to render the skin tones of her classmates in the opening session of their "Facing History and Ourselves" class. The students used as many crayons as necessary to reproduce students' skin color. "There was no black, no white, no yellow -- no two alike," said Lucy. "It made it so easy to see how ridiculous these labels are."
"Facing History and Ourselves" was developed by a 25 year-old Brookline, Massachusetts-based organization that goes by the same name. The encourages the examination of racism, prejudice group, which encourages the examination of racism, prejudice and anti-Semitism, provides interdisciplinary programs, resources and speakers to over 13,000 middle and high school educators, and reaches over 1 million young people annually.
Now, the organization is embarking on Online Campus, a distance learning initiative that will allow educators from around the world to take part in the group's programs. Scheduled to launch this fall, the Online Campus is designed to enhance and support the teaching of Facing History's existing programs in schools and communities. Participants will be able to collaborate on lesson plans, engage in discussions with scholars and Facing History staff.
An examination of individual identity is always included in the carefully crafted sequence of the Facing History classroom model. After looking at personal identity, the class moves on to group and national identity: Who "belongs" in a society? Who does not? Why? How does an individual’s action or inaction have impact?
This work prepares students to focus on Germany’s transformation from democracy to totalitarian state, and later to apply the lessons of the Holocaust to more recent examples of collective violence. Margot Stern Strom, co-founder of "Facing History," knows that studying injustice is an effective way to teach morality and citizenship. She also knows that technology is key to the future of her organization.
"Facing History's" teacher network was built the old-fashioned way – by bringing public and private school teachers together for intense, 12-hour, weeklong institutes. When these end, regular communication keeps teachers linked with one another and with the program and new resources.
Teachers who attend these institutes have a truly common experience, vocabulary and context, said Howard Lurie, a History teacher and member of the organization. "Can we develop that kind of community for people who haven’t had the face-to-face opportunity to develop understanding and trust?" he asked. That’s the challenge that "Facing History" must confront when developing its virtual campus for teachers.
The prototype Online Campus already includes the program’s "Holocaust & Human Behavior" primary resource book, and another, "The Hidden History of the American Eugenics Movement," is being created online. Teaching ideas, carefully vetted links to online resources on American, European and global history are in place, and more study guides, assessment tools, and forums for discussion are on the way.
Online Campus will expand rapidly, if it’s anything like "Facing History"’s five-year-old Web site. Now in its third generation, www.facinghistory.org offers complex but easily navigated paths for teachers, students and parents interested in examining history and human behavior. It's success can be seen by its impressively large and loyal audience. The site gets 450,000 hits per month representing about 15,000 user visits. Average user time spent is 25 minutes. These figures make the producers of most education Web sites drool.
Teachers like Judi Freeman at the Boston Latin School are passionate about the potential of new technologies to enhance the teaching of history. Her school supports its own Web site devoted to the five "Facing History" sections taught each year. Computers, she said, offer "an essential adjunct to amplify what you do."
As an example, Freeman explained what happened after a presentation on the Rwandan genocide prompted an explosion of conversation in one of her "Facing History" classrooms -- just when the bell rang to end the class. "Our 48 minutes were up. If the kids had walked out then, the moment would have been lost," she said. To keep the momentum, she immediately extended her students’ conversation onto the Web site. Some kids logged on during their free periods, some from home later that night; an animated conversation continued for days. Structured asynchronous discussions like this, Freeman and "Facing History" staff agree, encourage more shy students to speak up, and help all students refine their thinking and communication skills. As a semester progresses, Freeman always sees the growing maturity of her students through their subtler and more careful arguments. The intimacy and intensity that well-crafted online education programs can create still stuns Strom. "This is not distance learning -- this is close and powerful learning! We need to invent another term."